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Carp, Stewed

A stewed carp cooked with stock, claret, mushrooms, onions, herbs, nutmeg, and a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Carp, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the fish in vinegar and water, then cut it into thick slices.

Make the sauce

  1. Slice the onions and fry them in 2 oz of hot butter until brown.

  2. Add the stock, claret, mushrooms, herbs, nutmeg, salt, and pepper to the pan and warm it.

  3. Once warm, add the fish and simmer gently for 30 to 40 minutes.

  4. Remove the fish and keep it warm.

  5. Knead the flour and remaining butter into a smooth paste, then add it to the stewpan.

  6. Simmer and stir until the sauce is smooth.

Serve

  1. Place the fish on a hot dish, strain the sauce over it, and garnish with heated mushrooms, fried roe, and toast snippets.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carp
Forms the main body of the dish and holds its shape through gentle simmering.
Butter
Fat that browns the onions and enriches the sauce with richness and flavour.
Flour
Kneaded with butter into a paste that thickens the sauce as it simmers.
Claret
Wine that adds acidity and depth to the stewing liquid.
Stock
Liquid base that forms the body of the sauce and cooks the fish.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and texture to the sauce and garnish.

The step that matters

Simmering the fish gently. Fish is delicate, and a hard boil breaks up the flesh and makes it dry and tough. Gentle heat cooks it evenly while keeping the slices intact.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, mushroom, butter, parsley, thyme, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, mushroom, butter, parsley, thyme, nutmeg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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